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8 years ago we went on a mission in Golden, Colorado … a mission to accomplish as many activities in 1 hour as we possibly could. Welcome to the Golden Power Hour. This video is unique because you can’t do this anymore … you can’t visit Golden Bowl anymore … you can’t buy Apple computers at the Colorado School of Mines Bookstore anymore and you certainly can’t visit the original Tequila’s anymore :( Hell, you can’t even shoot standard definition 4×3 video anymore and upload it to YouTube in 360p. Fortunately, since 1873 the Coors Brewery Tour has been a staple in the ever changing Golden community and they still offer you free 3 samples of Cold Coors Banquets every day. Cheers, Happy Holidays, Let’s grab a beer!

Hey Apple – Happy 15 years of MP3 Portable Music Player Awesomeness. Thanks for our 6.5oz – 5 GB – 1,000 song MP3 player that had the first original 20 minute skip protection with a Firewire chargeable battery that provided 10 continuous hours of music playback in an ultra-portable device that ultimately changed the world! I think we can all safely say the last 15 years was better then the 15 years that proceeded it … all due to the ability of rocking out to our own music anywhere we could possibly dream, on our iPods!

I remember my first iPod party … it took 2.5 days to continuously and randomly play all 1,035 songs on my iPod. Ironically, the final song played happened to be “Closing Time” by Semisonic. 2.5 years later Apple partnered with HP + Compaq to to introduce the first and only iPod licensed product called the “Apple iPod by HP”. What a bullshit move really, for Apple fanatics … but in reality it was genius. HP’s tagline at the time was “Invent” which was laughable, but in 2004 HP shipped over 30 million computers, which all had iTunes compounded with the iTunes Music Store as the default music player. The rest of the story … is just history.

Although I believe the Audi A3 is actually the first car from Audi that signifies the beginning of the downfall of sexy design from my favorite German auto manufacturer… I still love this car and especially love this commercial. Let me say it again… Bode Miller + Out of Control + Audi quattro = Genius.

For those of you new to my idealistic and very passionate representation of brands and technology here at hydle.com – I’ve been a major fan of Audi since the mid 1990s, bought my first Audi in 2003 (a 1997 A4 that now has 234,000 miles + counting) and picked up a 2013 S4 supercharged quattro just this past year. The original Audi quattro changed the automotive world. Similar to Apple releasing the macintosh in 1984… what Audi was doing in 1984 also took hold as the single most important development in the auto industry that would change my life down the road.

No pun intended… haha – It is hard to explain the difference of All Wheel Drive vs. 4 Wheel Drive vs. Audi quattro. I would gladly show you if you want to take a ride to the hills in our next snowstorm, but if you must read – start here. Or if you want to get your motion picture view on – go here.

Now, back to the beginning of the design downfall. How long does it take for a brand to lose it’s leadership in design? Well, let’s look at how long it takes to “build good design”, also known as “brand” an idea. It took an entire decade to build quattro and two decades to design and build the image of Audi around quattro. It can take decades to build something great… and design something that ultimately takes hold and is respected as a product leader, but in the end… I would have to say you can lose it much faster then it takes to build it.

Audi lost one of their key designers, Peter Schreyer to KIA back in 2006 and it is starting to take effect now. Peter Schreyer, who is now the President and Chief Design Officer of Hyundai and Kia Motors was brought into that company with a completely blank design slate… and look what he has done. I won’t be the first one to admit that I’ve double checked a few KIA models in the last two years, but what he is doing at KIA is working… and what Audi is doing is starting to slide. It may not be a big slide, and I certainly hope Audi hasn’t quite reached it’s peak in design, but remember… you lose it a lot faster than you build it. I hope Apple, my other lifelong power brand realizes this.

Ultimately Audi could lose all their design luster… and I would still drive one simply because there is zero comparison for quattro and there probably never will be. Obviously Audi is part of a larger Volkswagen Automotive Group, but who drives those? Volkswagen’s are for girls. Škoda‘s are for Russians… and SEAT‘s… ummm, no – don’t even get me started. SEAT’s are for chinese mexicans… but that is what they said about KIA’s before Peter Schreyer started design cars for them.

Perhaps I could graduate to a Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini or Porsche in the future years… but I highly doubt I will ever find the passion of owning and talking positively about these brands. KIA on the other hand … hmmmmm?

In the history of HYDLE.com… this ridiculous “TSOIGDH” entry marks my 999th public blog post since May of 2009 – When I started this crazy world of blogging ideas, thoughts and Genius vs. Not Genius intermanents and social media successes or failures.

So for the sake of getting google credit for it…

“TSOIGDH” = TURNING SHIT ON IT’S GOD DAMN HEAD

Turning shit on it’s god damn head is going to be my 1 single inspiration for the next 999 blogpost entries. I can’t wait to open up my connection layer for all my loyal readers… so I can start finding out who you actually are.

After 2 and a half years of “Hit me on my pre-pay!” and GoPhone calculator simplicity… I have finally stepped back into the iPhone world. I can honestly say that I haven’t missed being technical, the trendy factor of owning Apple devices definitely pushed me away from playing in this arena for a while – But now I’m back.